Her mother was the same. Wide-eyed, wild-eyed, she insisted on music and dancing every night. Sometimes she stamped wildly into the night with the Spanish riff-raff Dash brought, shrieking in her rendition of Flamenco singing. She insisted that Arabella sit with Dash at dinner and keep company with him in the drawing room afterward.
Papa sat with Dash for hours, telling him stories of hunts he’d ridden thirty years ago, living in the glowing past and letting the present crumble around them. The crazy burlesque grew more heated as the date of the polo match approached.
They had “the family discussion,” just the three of them, and Papa finally told the truth. “Arabella, darling, we’ve been living a lie. I’ve known it for years, but couldn’t face it. We can’t afford our way of life. And now we’re done in. Bankrupt. Belly up.
“Dash has saved us. He’s paid our debts and allowed me to sign notes to him. He’s paid for everything. We could not be living here were it not for Dashielle.”
“We’re going to be so much richer, ‘Bella. Dash will reestablish us.” Her mother added with joy.
“Did you sell him everything, Papa?”
“No, dearest, mortgaged everything to him. He holds the reins; we get the life we’ve always had. It’s a miracle. His friend in Spain came up with the idea.”
“Where are the mortgages, Papa?”
“Dunno. Expect Dash has them. He might have left them in the village bank until we go to Spain after he trounces that rotter Leroy. That, probably. When we get them, we’ll pick up your papers too.”
“My papers?”
“Of course, the deeds to your properties and securities that you grandmother gave you.”
“Those are mine, Papa.”
His face grew red and his brows dropped. His hands clenched and he was out of his chair, at her, screaming. “Listen, you spoiled little tart, you are part of this family. You will benefit from Dash’s generosity more than anyone. He wants to marry you, ‘Bella, make you an honest woman after that black …”
“What?”
“Dash told me what Leroy did to you. Good that you got rid of it, ‘Bella, no one would expect you to carry that man’s bastard.”
She couldn’t speak. They thought her trip to London was to abort Leroy’s child?
“You thought I wouldn’t find out. But I did. Dash told me. Good job, girl. And now you’re going to do another good job, you’re marrying Dash as soon as we get to Spain. He loves you ‘Bella; he’ll take you even after that black monster defiled you.”
“Leroy didn’t …”
“Yes, he did,” her mother barked. “I saw him.”
“What? Where, Mama?”
“In your room, of course. But I’ll never tell.” She dropped her voice and tried another tack. “‘Bella, we’re ruined. Dash has saved us. He wants to marry you so much. It’s part of the mortgages, ‘Bella. You marry him or he calls all the notes. It’s such a little thing. You’ll find it quite pleasurable. Dash will make it that way. It won’t be like what Leroy did.”
Tears burst from her and she ran from the room. On the way to her bedroom, Dash caught her, pawing her body with his reptilian hands, licking her with his long tongue. He ran his hands over her breasts, gasping with pleasure.
“I may leave you fat. These are so jolly,” he pulled at the opening of her blouse, but she bent and pulled something from her low boot.
Pressing the barrel of the little pistol against his neck, Arabella said, “I will never marry you. Stay away from me or I’ll kill you.”
Dash jumped back, grinning wildly. “Oh, the bunny has some spirit. Breaking you will be delicious, Arabella. I can hardly wait.”
Arabella hid. A person who lives in a house with a hundred bedrooms can hide, and Arabella did. She had one chance and one chance only. The polo game.
34
Horseflesh
The wind whistled past Leroy’s ears as he rode Lightning from the stable onto the polo field. He’d never been to the Ballentyne country house and had hardly spoken to His Lordship since the debutante ball. Ballentyne seemed angry with him for something Leroy couldn’t fathom.
No matter, he’d been in warrior training with his Scots and Irish horsemen for the last two months. To them, the great mansions and castles were created from the blood of their countrymen. The nobility’s rents and taxes and levies were used to build ostentatious masterpieces from their ancestors’ impoverished bones.
Leroy kept that in mind as he rode toward the five-story block of stone, the grandest country mansion in England. Surrounded by a thousand park-like acres, the rock of the great house was streaked with age and mossy. Carvings and gargoyles covered its surfaces.
Statues ran across the top edge all the way around. Knights, they looked like, with mounted cavaliers on each corner. The statues must have been three times the size of normal people to look so big up there. Flags flew from all of them, standards with the Ballentyne colors and the British flag. They’d gone all out, preparing for this day of triumph.
A month before, Tom had called a friend, one of the footmen at the Ballentyne’s estate. “You won’t believe it, Tom,” his friend had said. “His Lordship’s gone crazy, firing and hiring. Fulton’s lucky he’s still the butler. Some toff in Spain sent his Lordship all new horses for the match. An’ riders too. They’re here, skulking about the castle and scaring the housemaids.
“The worst is His Lordship’s given Lady Arabella’s hand to Lord Dashiell.” Tom looked searchingly at Leroy when he told him. “Everyone knows that she doesn’t like him, but His Lordship’s set on the match. He’s going to announce it after the game. Everyone at the castle’s going crazy, sir … Leroy, sir. The press will be at the match. His Lordship called them in. That isn’t like him.” Tom had paused before kicking out the last bit. “Dashiell Pondichury is the other team’s captain. They’re all professionals, Leroy. His Lordship let him hire professionals.”
“Don’t worry, Tom, they haven’t beaten us yet.” He’d spent his two months practicing polo and getting his mounts and riders working as a team. Working as warriors. And they were warriors. They’d find out how good in the next few hours. He’d told his team to expect the roughest, dirtiest game they’d played. His warriors replied that the Scots and Irish knew a thing or two about that.
Riding onto the field on the big grey gelding, Leroy could see the insanity the game had generated all over the estate. It was just a country polo match on a day that promised a downpour.
Wet clouds hung all around the polo field, yet the elite spectators were decked out for a summer picnic. Hundreds were seated on the mansion’s rear terrace; so many portable chairs were stuffed onto it that those on the edges looked in danger of falling off. Below that, running dangerously close to the field, were more chairs, shielded by flapping white canvas tents.
On the driveways and creeping across the great lawns in the back were the common people, covered in waterproof mackintoshes and carrying umbrellas. They had some sense. He saw a van or two parked discreetly: TV stations.
What had prompted the elitist and publicity shy Lord Ballentyne to have media coverage? Leroy smiled. The reason was riding toward him. Dashiell Pondichury, the ninth Duke of Lancature, sat on an enormous black stallion. The creature had its neck arched and chin set as hard and tight as a horse could. He was covered with foam and sweat, and strands of saliva drifted from his mouth. Prancing like a locomotive, the stud looked like it might explode. Dashiell had been “working him down” somewhere out of sight. Didn’t seem to have done much good.
Dash waved like they were best friends. “Look what I get to ride!” he called. “My friend Enzo sent them for the game. For all of us.” He nodded toward the other three horses and riders on his team. All the animals had the arched necks and vicious intensity, plus the hindquarters and muscling to carry out whatever their riders might intend. Devil’s horses ridden by the devil’s men. Leroy had expected something like this.
The officials—two
mounted umpires and a referee, all Brits—had another thought. They pulled Leroy and Lord Dashiell in before the game, but questioned only Dashiell. “That’s not a polo pony. What is he?”
“Andalusian mix.” Dashiell scowled, not happy to be questioned. “Polo ponies don’t have to be purebred.” Unlike the sleek and mostly Thoroughbred horses normally used for polo, these steeds had rounded hindquarters and arched necks. Their manes weren’t roached—clipped flat with the horse’s neck—as most of the polo horses were. Their manes were braided, the braids bunched up and tied so they stood erect, looking like big pegs sticking out from the animals’ necks. Their tails, like Leroy’s horses’s, were clubbed, bound up around the bones of the horses’s tails and wrapped with bandages so that only a hairless stump showed. The effect was feudal rather than sporting.
“But can he play polo? He looks too hot to do anything but huff around a parade ground,” an umpire commented.
“Can you control him?” said the other umpire.
“I can control him.” Dashiell snapped.
Leroy looked at the shanks of the bit hanging from horse’s mouth. If the mouthpiece was anything like the sides, he’d seen instruments in the dungeon of the castle where he’d stayed that looked kinder. Medieval torture instruments. Dash’s spurs must have come from the same place.
“You have to use those on them to make him pay attention?” Leroy asked.
“Ride your own horse, Watches. Is that old nag going to make it through the game?” Dashiell barked. The umpires turned their attention to Leroy’s mount.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Watches, that was Sir Glamis’s horse. Brilliant animal—in his day. Will playing today kill him?”
“He’s sound and fit,” Leroy said. “He’ll do for a chukker.” Lightning had a tendency to nod off when he wasn’t in action. His head had dropped toward the turf. Leroy gently moved his fingers on the reins. The horse startled awake, ears pricked, looking for combat.
The game began. The two teams lined up midfield, facing each other. Lord Dashiell Pondichury; dashing, fair-haired and riding a horse that could have come from a fairy tale. With him were three professionals, unknown in the British Isles, but all had his Lordship’s noble and handsome mien. And his fair looks. They rode black horses that could have been siblings of Dashiell’s stallion. Their uniforms were pale blue polo shirts with purple clumps of grapes embroidered over the heart. Their white numbers covered their backs. White britches, of course. Those were traditional.
Against them rode Leroy and his team in red and black, a black buffalo skull outlined on his red helmet and red shirt front, and traditional white britches. His teammates were: an aging, Scottish pro polo player who had been out of the game since a horse fell on him two years earlier. A brilliant young Scottish rider, his game diminished just a bit by alcohol for a few years, but now very sober. And old Laurie, who said he had severed all association with the Irish Republican Army. They rode a mismatched set of horses: a gigantic draft-horse-looking thing with a wild pinto coat. A rangy roan with a bald face and a Roman nose. Laurie brought his own horse from Ireland, a fine Irish polo pony. It was probably older than Lightning.
The umpire tossed the ball between the two teams and the game was on. About two hours from then, something would have been proven. Leroy wasn’t sure what. The game was six chukkers, each seven minutes long. A bell would announce the completion of each chukker. Three minute break between chukkers; five minutes at half-time. A neat, tidy schedule with timeouts only for mayhem or injury.
35
Lady Arabella
Lady Arabella sat in an open tent at the edge of the field with her mother and the most prestigious women. They were arranged around an enormous table upon which a startlingly gaudy silver trophy was displayed. The trophy was totally unnecessary. This was an informal match, out of season. No league championship was involved; yet her father had commissioned it. She knew to whom he hoped to present it later. The staff moved around, serving them drinks. Arabella could neither eat nor drink.
She wore her signature pale blue, this time in a wool dress with matching coat; her shoulders were wrapped in a woolen shawl that was crewel-embroidered in her blue. It was cold on the field, though she felt the ice in her veins and her frozen hands and feet most acutely. On her head was an enormous hat of the type beloved by upper class Englishwomen.
It looked like a flying saucer wrapped in net with little pale lavender grape sprigs stuck all over. Dash had bought it for her; a present for what everyone assumed would be his glorious day. The hat was hellishly expensive; it was meant to highlight the wonderful announcement to be made after the hunt tomorrow. Or possibly tonight, if Dash won well enough.
Her stomach lurched and she stood unsteadily. “Be right back, Mama,” she said, heading for the house. Her mother’s eyes were unnaturally bright. The Duchess waved as though her daughter was embarking for the Orient rather than heading for the loo. “Tally ho, ‘Bella!”
Arabella had to thread her way across the terrace through every parvenu and major greengrocer in the county to get inside her own house.
“Everything all right, Your Ladyship?” Fulton looked at her with worried eyes, which matched his worried demeanor. He was as distraught as she. Two months in the new Ballentyne estate had shrunk him. “I’m keeping an eye out for you,” he’d said. They both knew why.
Arabella went back to her seat at the polo match. Mama’s bright eyes followed her across the rear patio. Mama was watching her too. Seeing that she didn’t bolt.
She was still a virgin. For how long? She knew something deep inside, in that place that knows everything. If she married Dashiell, she would also marry those three riders on his team. They sniffed at her as though she was already theirs. Arabella searched the field for Leroy, so anxious she could barely see.
The game was violent, the worst she’d attended. Dash charged into Leroy’s grey gelding, hitting him with his stallion’s shoulder behind Leroy’s leg. It wasn’t a foul, because Dash hit him at less than forty-five degrees. The gelding staggered, but didn’t go down and Leroy drove the ball home. Leroy’s team was ahead.
The score went back and forth: one to nothing, Leroy’s team ahead. One to one, one to two. One to three, Dash’s team ahead. Every chukker they changed mounts. Dash’s blond team with their fiery black horses; Leroy’s motley crew on a bunch of mutts. Leroy’s team’s mismatched mounts obviously changed each chukker. Dash’s team went off to their corner between chukkers and milled about. More black horses were there. Arabella couldn’t tell if they changed them. The horses acted as energized as fresh horses.
“Oh, my goodness, did you see that?” Lady Humphington gasped. One of Leroy’s Scots had the ball, riding a rangy chestnut Thoroughbred. Two of Dash’s gigantic blacks came up from the rear. One bumped him from the left, but within the rules. The horse missed a stride in the rear, but kept going. The other black horse bumped him from the other side, also within the regulations, but before it could get its feet totally under itself. The chestnut’s hindquarters flew out from under it and it was down on the turf. Athletic, it leaped up in an instant, but the rider didn’t. Screaming obscenities in Gaelic, Arabella assumed, the rider grabbed his leg. The horse had fallen on it.
“Stop play,” umpire bellowed and whistled. The other riders turned to look at the fallen man.
“Oh, terrible luck, old man,” Dash cried with false sympathy.
Leroy jumped off his horse, which stood as though planted to the spot he’d left it, and ran to the fallen Scot and began singing in a foreign language. Arabella could barely hear it. His language. He laid his hands on the fallen man’s leg, stroking it. After the shortest time, the man sat up, and then gingerly stood. Grinning, he clapped Leroy on the back. “Where’s my horse?”
The game raged over the field, the umpires galloping to keep up. Unable to move as fast as the ball. Unable to see what was really happening. The horses on both sides seemed super-charged. “Look! He did it again!”
The horses Leroy’s team rode did strange things. One of Dash’s men was after a squinty old Irishman Arabella remembered playing years before. The man on the black horse swung his mallet back, aiming not at the ball, but at the back of the Irishman’s horse’s knee.
“No! Everyone stood up.” The scrappy horse stopped so fast that it slid across the turf. The viciously wielded mallet whizzed past its legs. The horse spun on its rear and tore off, leaving the Spaniard looking bewildered.
“Not fair!” Dash shouted, riding to the umpire. “Those are cowboy tricks!”
“Not so, young sir. The original polo ponies were often ranch horses skilled in moving cattle. Nothing wrong at all, though had your man connected with that horse’s knee, I would have called unfair, indeed. The clock is running.”
They were on the third chukker; each side had scored three goals. Both teams looked ragged. However mismatched Leroy’s team was, they were good at the sport. Arabella dug into her oversized handbag and pulled out tennis shoes.
“What are you doing, ‘Bella?” Her mother’s eyes widened more than the drug already had made them. She could see a vein pulsating at her mother’s temple.
“I’m not going to wear £600 shoes on the field.” She slipped her dagger pointed, high-heeled designer shoes in her bag. “It’s almost half-time. I must do my part.”
“Divot stamping,” the matron refused the common term “stomping”, “isn’t for us, ‘Bella; it’s for them.” She indicated the hordes behind them.
“Mother, Dash gave me this hat so he could see me out there at half-time, cheering him on.” False smile, shaking lips, trembling hands.
“Oh. Well, if that’s what Dash wants, you’d better do it.” She smiled as though Arabella had invoked the name of God.
Arabella shot onto the field the moment the half-time bell rang. Once on the greensward, she pulled off the ridiculous hat and sailed it back toward her mother. It flew like one of those Frisbee toys. She ran toward Leroy, who was off of his horse, picking up divots and stomping them down like everyone else.
In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance Page 25